Comparative gene expression study of the vestibular organ of the Igf1 deficient mouse using whole-transcript arrays.

In this study we have compared the whole transcriptome of the vestibular organ from wild type and Igf1(-/-) mice at different developmental and postnatal times. RNA was prepared from E18.5, P15 and P90 vestibular organs of Igf1(-/-) and Igf1(+/+) mice and the transcriptome analysed in triplicates using Affymetrix® Mouse Gene 1.1 ST Array Plates. These plates are whole-transcript arrays that include probes to measure both messenger (mRNA) and long intergenic non-coding RNA transcripts (lincRNA), with a coverage of over 28 thousand coding transcripts and over 7 thousands non-coding transcripts. Given the complexity of the data we used two different methods VSN-RMA and mmBGX to analyse and compare the data. This is to better evaluate the number of false positives and to quantify uncertainty of low signals. We identified a number of differentially expressed genes that we described using functional analysis and validated using RT-qPCR. The morphology of the vestibular organ did not show differences between genotypes and no evident alterations were observed in the vestibular sensory areas of the null mice. However, well-defined cellular alterations were found in the vestibular neurons with respect their number and size. Although these mice did not show a dramatic vestibular phenotype, we conducted a functional analysis on differentially expressed genes between genotypes and across time. This was with the aim to identify new pathways that are involved in the development of the vest...
Source: Hearing Research - Category: Audiology Authors: Tags: Hear Res Source Type: research